A syntactic and morphological account of English non-affixal deverbal Compounds
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[1] Universidad de Granada
Universidad de Granada
Granada, España
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- Localización: Italian journal of linguistics, ISSN 1120-2726, Vol. 36, Nº. 1, 2024, págs. 103-128
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
The exploration of English compounds like heartbeat, mouse click or gunfight reveals complexities because, despite an apparently straightforward noun+noun structure, their internal constituency is less obvious. Even if these formations have been sometimes treated as regular primary noun+noun compounds, today there is agreement that their chain of word-formation involves deverbal conversion (clickV > clickN) followed by noun+noun compounding (mouseN+clickN). Precisely because the head noun has previously undergone verb-to-noun conversion, such compounds may be seen sometimes as primary and sometimes as synthetic. This article explores a selection of ca. 800 non-affixal (de)verbal compounds (NDVCs), inspected in the light of their BNC frequencies, (non-)argumental nature, type of orientation and productivity degree. The results point to: (i) a significant role of the extralinguistic context for meaning interpretation, (ii) a connection between the argumental specifications of the verbal base and the converted head noun (i.e. click in mouse click), and (iii) the possibility to understand a given NDVC at the same time as primary and as synthetic.
